As I was downloading oldies onto my computer the other day, I found a classic hit from the 1950’s: “Yakety-Yak” by the Coasters.  Back in the 50’s, every kid in America—white, black, Hispanic, or Asian; native or naturalized—identified with that song.

Several assumptions undergirded the lyrics: Mothers and fathers rear children together; they are on the same page.  (“Your father’s hip,” Mother says, “he knows what cooks!”)  Father has the last word; he does not suffer noncompliance lightly.  (“Don’t talk back.”)  Children properly have chores.  (“If you don’t scrub that kitchen floor / you ain’t gonna rock and roll no more.”)  And disrespect—even under the cover of a “dirty look”—is intolerable.  Behavior has consequences.  Finally, the peer group is not the boss; adults rule.

In the 1950’s, these principles were at the core of what we understood as “the backbone of society.”  Not anymore.

Listening to today’s campaign rhetoric, I am reminded of that ritual of Baby Boomer pseudo-adulthood: student government.  My mother, now 84, tells me that student government was not so prevalent in public schools of the pre-war era.  Pupils ran for “Most Likely to Succeed” and “Homecoming Queen”—all unabashed popularity contests—but student government was reserved for college.

After World War II came the “Model U.N.” and high-school student-body elections.  Like rock ’n’ roll itself, these early “reality contests” foisted on boomer youths a false sense of their own importance.  Not that we wielded much power: Our teachers’ intent was simply to encourage us to think beyond looks and personality.

Of course, no such thing happened.  The “popular” kids—i.e., the students with vivacious personalities, great physiques, and pretty faces—won the day, as before, regardless of any campaign oratory.  Serious, “overachieving” kids (the ones termed “nerds” today) rarely stood a chance.

We whooped it up over such songs as “Yakety-Yak,” because being told what to do was probably the Number One irritation in our lives.  Our eventual sit-ins, protests, and demonstrations were not so much about “causes” and “issues” as about being told how to live.  Songs like “Yakety-Yak,” while innocent, helped to jump-start our rebellion.

Through such activities as student elections, our teachers sought to encourage genuine debate and to teach us about the democratic process.  Our elders didn’t foresee a seditious “youth culture”; they saw miniature adults.  It didn’t turn out as expected.

If today’s political campaigns increasingly remind you of high-school popularity contests, complete with sniping and false logic; if newscasts seem focused on apparel, hairdos, and charisma; if you perceive a certain cluelessness concerning what candidates promise versus what Congress actually allows the Executive Branch to do, think back to those teenage exercises in student elections.

Young adults “swooning” over Ba­rack Obama?  Mike Huck­a­bee strumming his guitar?  Bill Clinton’s attempt at rock-star status in pursuit of his own campaign, and now his wife’s?  Political debates that are long on quips but short on specifics?  These are the hallmarks of those juvenile skirmishes in student government.  Today’s campaigns in no way begin to approach, in either content or style, the “whistle stops” of an earlier time, when even eloquence occasionally prevailed.

One night during the campaign, I happened to catch The Tonight Show With Jay Leno.  Mr. Leno asked the live audience, “How many watched the debates last night?”  Virtually no hands went up.  Leno chuckled knowingly, then suggested that only somebody “without a life” would bother.

He may not be far off the mark.  The “election season,” such as it is, has become as protracted as adolescence itself.  The pageant contestants wave to their admirers as they parade across the stage of television.  Any real thinkers are shut out.  The finalists blather about “the economy,” “American jobs,” and “the environment”—but define nothing.  If you listen closely, however, their passionate pleas amount to more regulations; expanded entitlements; piles of foreign aid, red tape, and hassles for every citizen.  Except for the elite, that is: individuals flush with trust funds, passed to them many lifetimes ago, or else the nouveau riche of Hollywood tabloids and sports renown—folks who will hire legions of somebody elses to shoulder the burdens, leaving themselves free to expound on nebulous causes, especially telling the rest of us how to live.

What goes around, comes around.  Yakety-yak.  (Don’t talk back.)